c. 2005 Religion News Service

TEL AVIV, Israel _ The name of this central Tel Aviv bar comes from an American war hero in Iraq. The decor is punctuated with photographs of bearded Taliban men. The music fuses aggressive club rhythms with lilting Arabic melodies from the canon of Egyptian diva Umm Kulthum.

Awkward concept?

At Shoshana Johnson, proof to the contrary can be found on the dance floor, where 20-something Israelis swivel their hips and jubilantly contort their arms like ethnic folk dancers. “The sexiest and most effervescent (bar) there is,” concluded a local entertainment guide.

Normally obsessed with emulating notions of chic from New York and Europe, trendy bars in Israel’s most cosmopolitan city now are taking their cultural cues from the country’s adversaries. Long ignored by Israelis as parochial and primitive, Arabic music is in demand among Tel Aviv sophisticates.

Young hipsters are not the only ones drawn in by the trend. Bars that play Arabic music also are attracting politicians, actors and executives.

Some believe it’s an indication of the thaw with the Palestinians and other parts of the Arab world. Others speculate it’s a passing fad. But many see it as a yearning to embrace a neighboring culture viewed as hostile by the country’s establishment.

“Before I even opened, I knew that that’s the kind of music I wanted to play here. It’s the kind of music I grew up with,” said Assaf Ochayon, 29, who co-owns Shoshana Johnson and whose mother hailed from Morocco.

“Lots of people here think we (Israelis) are European and we are on the standard with Americans,” Ochayon said. “But the fact is that we are here in the Middle East and are sitting next to Arab neighbors.”

The bar’s namesake, Army Spc. Shoshana Johnson, was wounded and spent three weeks as a prisoner of war during the early days of the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. Ochayon, who opened the bar in October of that year, insists he didn’t select the name as a tribute or as a concept, though pictures of Afghan underground fighters were chosen as a regional tie-in.

Ochayon says his motives aren’t political; in fact, he is pessimistic about the prospects for a peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians. Still, the growing popularity of Arabic music is a sign that Israeli attitudes toward their neighbors are softening.

While DJs and bar proprietors have heard comments from patrons who consider the music unpatriotic or insulting, they note that the trend could not have taken root at the height of the Palestinian uprising.

“If there were terrorist attacks left and right, there’s no way I could play this music,” said Oren Alkalay, co-owner of Mishmish, another nightspot featuring Arabic-style music. “It would be a very naive thing to do to be listening to the music of your enemy.”

With decor that evokes an old-time smoking club, Mishmish usually offers swing and jazz along with its cocktails. Once a week, though, the bar recasts itself.

“Cafe Cairo” night features a soundtrack with prancing darbuka drums and meditative solos from a Middle Eastern lute called an oud. Occasionally a belly dancer performs.

The format has been successful, Alkalay said.

“People in our generation are more culturally open. If this is going on around us, and it’s accessible, it would be ridiculous not to take part.”

To be sure, Arabic culture isn’t foreign to millions of Israeli Jews who hail from or trace their roots to Middle Eastern countries stretching from Morocco to Iraq. But for decades those traditions were ignored, in part because Israel’s European elite looked down on them and sought cultural inspiration from the West.

Srulik Einhorn, a DJ who has been playing Arabic tunes for years, said the music caught on in Tel Aviv because it was far from the mainstream tastes of Israelis. The music’s appeal came from its “underground” image.

“People didn’t know what it is. People didn’t understand why they were listening to it. It was hard for them to accept,” Einhorn said. “Sometimes I get reactions: `What is all this Arabic music? What am I, in Jordan?”’

The 25-year-old DJ has brought his fusion of Arabic and club music to Hamara, a bar inside one of Tel Aviv’s top restaurants. On some nights the mixing panel is taken over by Einhorn’s brother-in-law, Gil Shwed.

“We fit in the Middle East somewhat,” said Shwed, whose “day job” is as chief executive of an Israeli software firm. “It’s good that at least we have some common things about music, and it’s not all about politics.”

Yet many who enjoy the Arabic music still look down on the cultures that produced it, Ifat Ben Moshe, 20, said while eating sushi at the Hamara bar.

“It’s like when a rich girl puts on a T-shirt and jeans,” she said. “They hear this music and they feel like they’ve traveled to a faraway place that’s exotic, dirty and smelly.”

The music’s popularity in clubs has not translated to more radio time or increased record sales. And what’s become hip in a few Tel Aviv bars is far from becoming a national fad.

“It’s roots music and very specific,” said Gal Appleroit, a salesman at a record shop and a DJ whose radio show is broadcast around the country. “I don’t feel any special interest in Arabic music in our store.”

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What’s more, the Tel Aviv bars draw very few, if any, of Israel’s Arab citizens, Einhorn said. Likewise, the DJ has never been invited to work at any clubs or restaurants run by Israeli Arabs.

But with improving relations between Israel and the Palestinians, Einhorn is dreaming about playing a club in Ramallah. The city is known as the most sophisticated and tolerant in the West Bank, but Israelis also remember how two reservists were lynched there by an angry mob at the start of the Palestinian uprising in 2000.

“It would be a great honor. I would love to play to a crowd for whom the music is their roots,” he said. “But it’s also a little scary.”

MO/PH/LF END MITNICK

(Joshua Mitnick wrote this story for The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J.)